Monday, May 31, 2010

I co-hosted a Pickles and Ice Cream shower for a fabulous friend last summer. I always meant to create a post about it and share some of our ideas and pics but I just never got around to it. Now another friend is hosting a Pickles and Ice Cream shower and she asked about some of the things I did for this one. So I figured now was the perfect time to finally create this post. I had a really hard time coming up with ideas for this shower so if anyone else wants to borrow any feel free!

Snacks: I made cupcakes baked in ice cream cones and topped them with cream cheese frosting (colored blue and green) and finished with sprinkles. My co-host dyed Nutter Butter cookies with green food coloring and put them in little bowls of ice cream. So cute! We also had a local bakery make petit fours with the baby's name on them (Tip for displaying these: line a cookie sheet with color coordinating tissue paper). We also served marinated mozzarella, nuts, monogram chocolates, and pickle cookies (see below for details on how I made the chocolates and cookies).

Decorations: I bought a few yards of some "pickle green" fabric at a local fabric store for the table cloth and an additional yard of blue and white polka dot fabric to bunch in the center of the table. The centerpiece was a diaper cake that I made. All of the ribbon came from Hobby Lobby. For the cake topper I used feathers (also from Hobby Lobby) and a wooden "G" I got in the unfinished craft wood section at H.L. I painted it blue and then added little white polka dots to it. The gorgeous flower arrangements were blue hydrangeas, white roses, and green spider mum's. My co-host has an amazing eye for flowers! The arrangements were my favorite part of the shower decor. She found the lime green vases at Hobby Lobby as well. We used green, blue, and brown plates, napkins, and plastic cutlery. Early in the party planning process I stumbled upon green waffle cone glasses at T.J. Maxx and snatched them up. I wasn't sure what I was going to use them for but I ended up putting the plastic cutlery in them. I thought it was a cute touch!

Favors: I am SO proud of these! I needed a cute, budget friendly favor idea that would tie all of the shower elements together. I started with ice cream cones. These are about $1 for a box of 20. You can't get more budget friendly than that. Then I purchased "G" "W" and "S" candy molds (the baby's initials). I think you can find these online fairly easily. Mine came from an awesome store in Little Rock called Vanness. I bought green, blue, and brown chocolates from Hobby Lobby and melted them in a candy making bottle. You can get these really cheap in the cake decorating section of any craft store. Then I filled the molds with the melted chocolate and let them set in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. For the final component I took sugar cookie dough and colored it green with food coloring. I rolled the dough for each cookie into a snake shape. I baked them for a few minutes until the were just getting crispy on the outside but still fluffy in the middle. As soon as I took them out of the oven I "squished" the edges so that they looked the pickles and then let them cool. I filled the ice cream cones with green and blue shred and then put the cookie and chocolates inside. We set these on trays by the guest book so they served as additional decorations and then people could take them as they signed the book on there way out.

I LOVED how this shower turned out and it is probably my favorite party theme that I've ever had the pleasure of working on. It was a challenge but totally worth it and it forced me to have to get creative. I'm always more pleased with projects that make me think outside of the box. Hope you enjoy!

Can I have you do something for the next party I put together? I don't know what it is, but I'll make up something just to see this beauty displayed!Seriously, this is amazingly beautiful! Congrats on your creativity and talent!